Progressive Muslims: Friends of Imperialism And Neocolonialism
(Or: The blog formerly known as Progressive Muslim Union North America Debate)

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

The rise and fall of Muslim Wake Up ?

Muslim Wake Up is a supposed "independent" web publication - whose "editor in-chief" Ahmed Nassef, is the executive director of "Progressive Muslim Union North America." Jawad Ali is the co-founder, and also acts as the editor of the web site.

While claiming "independence," the site serves as the editorial media outlet of the "Progressive Muslim Union." Rarely, if ever, opinions critical of the official position of the PMUNA are published on the site. As such, one might consider it to be the official mouthpiece/propaganda outlet of the PMU NA.

The above image for Muslim Wake Up "daily reach" is from Alexa, an online service that measures web site hits. While Alexa is not the most accurate, it does provide useful information when examining trends.

The spike reflects the Amina Wadud media show case event - for two-three weeks Muslim Wake Up pushed the event, and manufactured a controversy, drawing a large number of visitors to the site. Immediately after the event, the visitors disappeared, but not before the PMU executive director could boldly claim a "rising readership."

While other Islamic websites do have spikes, they can be traced to sacred periods in the Islamic calendar such as Hajj, Ramadan, and for Shi'a Muslim sites, the month of Muharram. Only Muslim Wake Up can lay claim to fame that it's spike is based on a media marketing gimmick.